Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body

Synopsis

Skateboarders are an increasingly common feature of the urban environment - recent estimates total 40 million world-wide. We are all aware of their often extraordinary talent and manoeuvres on the city streets. This book is the first detailed study of the urban phenomenon of skateboarding. It looks at skateboarding history from the surf-beaches of California in the 1950s, through the purpose-built skateparks of the 1970s, to the street-skating of the present day and shows how skateboarders experience and understand the city through their sport. Dismissive of authority and convention, skateboarders suggest that the city is not just a place for working and shopping but a true pleasure-ground, a place where the human body, emotions and energy can be expressed to the full.The huge skateboarding subculture that revolves around graphically-designed clothes and boards, music, slang and moves provides a rich resource for exploring issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and the family. As the author demonstrates, street-style skateboarding, especially characteristic of recent decades, conducts a performative critique of architecture, the city and capitalism. Anyone interested in the history and sociology of sport, urban geography or architecture will find this book riveting.

The Reformation in English Towns 1500-1640/the Quiet Reformation. Magistrates and the Emergence of Protestantism in Tudor Norwich/The Reformation and the Towns in England. Politics and Political Culture, C. 1540-1640Skeeters, Martha C..
Anglican and Episcopal History, Vol. 69, No. 2, June 2000

Congress of Cities Offers Support, Learning Opportunities for Local Elected Officials: Nearly 3,000 Local Officials Representing 1,200 Cities and Towns-From All 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico-With What May Seem to Be Unique Needs and Problems but More Often Than Not Are Universal Challenges, Can Find Support, Solace and the Shared Excitement in ThisBorut, Donald J..
Nation's Cities Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 49, December 5, 2005

Travel: A City of Diversity; Germany Is a Country of Contrasts. GORDON BARR Drives from West to East and Discovers Cosmopolitan Cities, Grand Palaces and Towns Steeped in Culture and History along the AutobahnsBarr, Gordon.
Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), September 6, 2008